Artwork Description
William Wegman – Enframed
Dimensions: 24 x 20″ framed
Year: 1995
Medium: polaroid
William Wegman is an American artist best known for his portraits of his Weimaraner dogs. “My Weimaraners are perfect fashion models,” he said of his subjects. “Their elegant, slinky forms are covered in gray—and gray, everyone knows, goes with anything.” Born on December 2, 1943 in Holyoke, MA, Wegman graduated with a BFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston in 1965, and received an MFA in painting from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign two years later. He began working with his dog, Man Ray, named after the famed Surrealist artist, in the 1970s by positioning the dog within in various humorous props and costumes. Wegman began to use a Polaroid 20 x 24 camera with Fay Ray—Man Ray’s successor—in 1986. Her litter would then feature heavily into Wegman’s staged photography and films throughout the 1990s. His videos and photos have appeared in a variety of films, advertisements, books, and television programs such as Sesame Street and Saturday Night Live. The artist currently lives and works between New York, NY and Rangeley, ME. His works are held in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., among others. – Artnet